James Poulos writes about political news, focusing on our choices for liberty and our options for reform. He's a columnist at The Daily Beast, the host of the Free Radicals podcast, and the frontman of a band called Black Hi-Lighter.

From Ron to Rand, the GOP's Paul Problem Isn't Going Away. It Also Isn't a Problem

Establishment Republicans have been eager to get past the part of the election cycle where Ron Paul has played an outsized role. Rand Paul’s recent endorsement of Mitt Romney divided libertarians, but the Paul heir’s apparent capitulation to business as usual actually underscores how the GOP faces a more complex challenge to the ideological status quo.

Rand’s willingness to play ball with the powers that be takes on a much different cast than it would if Ron wasn’t still a powerful force on his own. Instead of hanging up his spurs, Paul the Elder is raking in the cash: $1.78 million in May, leaving him with over $3 million in the bank. That’s not much relative to Mitt Romney’s almost $77 million take that month with the RNC. But, combined with Ron’s persistent impact in the wake of the primaries — Iowa is sending a largely Paulite slate of delegates to this year’s nominating convention — it’s enough to keep independent libertarians active in Republican party politics.

That makes for a two-prong Paul family strategy: play an outsider’s game and an insider’s game. While Ron keeps the grassroots purists happy, Rand admits freely that he’d be “honored” to serve as Romney’s vice president. From one angle, this seems a dangerous approach: it could give the Pauls the worst of both worlds, discrediting themselves among libertarians and Republicans alike.

There are two potent reasons why it’s not such a high-risk move, however. First, there’s not much of an alternative. Second, libertarians and Republicans alike have a deep-seated need to have it both ways in just the manner the Pauls are achieving.

Consider the alternatives to the two-prong strategy — giving up on politics altogether, assimilating completely into the Republican party, and doubling down on the Libertarian party itself. It’s clear that libertarians are enjoying their moment of increased national relevance; given the libertarian cast of some frustrations on the left with Obama and the continued disenchantment of many conservatives with establishmentarianism on the right, there’s much less to savor about turning a cold shoulder to the national political scene. Yet, the time is not yet ripe for a full push to burrow into the heart of the GOP. Ron and Rand may actually both be setting libertarianism on a course for a much closer encounter with the centers of Republican power, but libertarians are far from ready to check their identity at the door. Finally, no matter how well-regarded and competent Gary Johnson may be, the Libertarian party itself is an ineffective organization that still struggles with credibility and unity from the ground up. For the foreseeable future, the future of libertarian Republicanism belongs to the Pauls.

Despite the protracted bickering and fretting this may cause, it leaves everyone on the right better off. Booting the Paul people from the GOP might gratify some neoconservatives, it’s not possible to expel them without performing a full libertarianectomy — and any Republican who’s willing even to risk that outcome just isn’t serious about winning elections (to say nothing of any fealty to Reagan Republicanism). Likewise, awkwardly navigating the borderline between libertarian and Republican purists is the only way to reassemble an effective voting and governing coalition that can replace the current administration and hold the line against congressional Democrats and movement liberals.

More than grief, Ron and Rand deserve applause from the factions they’re working to bring together.

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Ron Paul is no libertarian; he is a crypto-Nazi. Crypto-Nazism is a term implying a secret support for, or admiration of, the genocidal political and economic system invented by Adolf Hitler. The term is used to imply that an individual or group keeps this support or admiration hidden in order to avoid political prosecution or, in Ron Paul’s case, political suicide. Crypto-Nazis maintain covers such as “libertarian” and “populist” to disguise a hidden agenda. They use code words e.g. “Goldman-Sachs” means Jews.

The really sad thing would be if you actually believed any of that AJ. If you do you’ve bought into liberal fearmongering and you can step away from the ledge. Ron Paul isn’t a racist, he’s a threat to hardcore liberalisim and an Obama re election.

Nice try. First off, the term is “crypto-fascist.” And it refers to the system created by Benito Mussolini.

You say “libertarian” is code for “Nazi” or “Fascist” – well, let’s look those words up and see what the core tenets are. Nationalism, totalitarianism, single party state, militarism, Social Darwinism, mixed economy… that doesn’t really sound anything at all like the ideas behind libertarianism, or anything Paul promotes.

And “Goldman-Sachs” refers only to the banking and securities firm. Anyone truly trying to create a code to disguise their speech isn’t going to choose something so simple – anyone who knows the stereotype could guess the code.

AJ that’s great satire right there! Making the most principled man in Congress in the last 100 years out to look like a Nazi – You should be a writer for the Onion! Oh wait… You weren’t serious were you? If so, we might have to go get you fitted for an tin foil hat. You look like a Reynolds Wrap kinda guy. D:-)

let me guess….you listened to webster tarpley and now you feel “smart,” “in the know,” “educated”….correct? except webster tarpley is an ignorant arrogant a-hole, who knows nothing about ron paul. so, what does that make you?

Alan Jules Weberman (born May 26, 1945), better known as A. J. Weberman, is an American writer, political activist, gadfly, and popularizer of the terms garbology and “Dylanology”. He is best known for his controversial personal confrontations with the musician Bob Dylan and for his 30-year involvement with the Yippies, a counterculture movement of the 1960s.[1] He is also an activist in the Jewish Defense Organization, said by the Anti-Defamation League[2] to be a militant Revisionist Zionist organization regarded as a branch of Kahanism, but which professes to be a Jabotinskyite organization.[3]